Calendar Guide — Sending confirmations for staff-booked appointments

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What are staff-booked appointment confirmations?

By default, Elation sends a booking confirmation only when a patient schedules their own appointment on your Booking Site. Staff-booked appointment confirmations extend that to appointments your staff create from the EMR calendar: when the setting is on, the patient gets a confirmation by email or text shortly after staff book the appointment, and an updated confirmation if staff later change the appointment’s time, provider, location, or visit type. This is an opt-in setting for your practice, and it is off until you turn it on.

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Why is this valuable?

Patients booked by your front desk get the same immediate confirmation that self-scheduling patients already receive, so they have the appointment details in writing and are less likely to miss the visit.

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Setup

• The setting lives under Settings > Calendar & Booking > Appointment Reminders.
• Changing it requires permission to manage calendar and booking settings, the same permission the other settings on that card use.

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Turning on staff-booked confirmations

1. Go to Settings > Calendar & Booking > Appointment Reminders.
2. Turn on Send patients a confirmation when staff book an appointment.

Once the setting is on, confirmations send automatically for appointments staff book going forward. The setting follows the appointment’s practice, so it applies to the practice the appointment belongs to.

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When a confirmation is sent

With the setting on, a confirmation is sent when:

• Staff book a new appointment from the calendar. The patient gets one confirmation.
• Staff book a new recurring series. The patient gets one confirmation that covers the series. It lists the upcoming occurrences, up to the next 10, then notes how many more there are. Cancelled occurrences and occurrences already in the past are left out.
• Staff extend a recurring series to add occurrences. The patient gets one confirmation that lists the dates that were added, sent as a new booking rather than an update.
• Staff change a patient-facing detail of an existing appointment. The patient gets one updated confirmation when any of these change:
  • the date or time,
  • the provider,
  • the location, or
  • the visit type (switching between in-person and telehealth).
  When the appointment is part of a series, the patient gets one updated confirmation covering the occurrences that were edited.

An updated confirmation email reads “Your appointment has been updated,” and a text says the appointment has been updated to the new time and date.

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When nothing is sent

No confirmation is sent when:

• Staff edit only the reason, duration, visit instructions, billing, copay, or status. These are not patient-facing scheduling details.
• A change does not actually affect anything the patient sees.
• An appointment is already in the past, such as a walk-in or a back-documented visit.
• Staff cancel an appointment, or shorten a recurring series to remove occurrences. Cancellations do not notify the patient through this setting.
• The appointment is created or changed through an external integration rather than the Elation calendar.
• The patient has no usable email or textable mobile number.
• The appointment is not visible to the patient in their patient portal, such as one withheld from patients or booked on a resource calendar.

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How the patient receives the confirmation

A confirmation is sent as either an email or a text, never a phone call. Elation tries the patient’s preferred method first, then text, then email, and never places a phone call:

• Text when the patient has a mobile number opted in to texts, unless they prefer email.
• Email when the patient prefers email, has no textable mobile number, or the text cannot be delivered, for example when the number has unsubscribed.

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What the confirmation includes

These details apply to staff-booked confirmations:

• Telehealth visits leave off the clinic address, both in the email and in the add-to-calendar links, since the patient is not coming to the office. The clinic name, phone number, and email still appear.
• Visit instructions appear under “Instructions for your visit” for in-person visits, and under “Instructions for your virtual visit” for telehealth visits. A text confirmation includes the visit instructions as well, after the appointment details. For a series, the text also notes how many more appointments are in the series.
• Provider video join details are never shown for an in-person visit. If an appointment is switched from telehealth to in-person, the virtual join details are cleared so a video link is not sent for an in-office visit.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Does this replace appointment reminders?

No. Confirmations are sent at booking time. Appointment reminders are sent ahead of the visit and are set up separately. See Calendar Guide — Using automated appointment reminders.

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Will a patient who booked their own appointment get two confirmations?

No. This setting adds confirmations for appointments staff book. Self-scheduled appointments already send their own confirmation, and that behavior does not change.

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Does the patient need to do anything with the confirmation?

No. The confirmation simply lets the patient know the appointment details. There is nothing for them to confirm, accept, or click, and it does not change the appointment’s status on your calendar. The appointment status only updates when a patient confirms through an appointment reminder. For more questions, see Staff-Booked Appointment Confirmations — Frequently Asked Questions.

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Related Articles

• Staff-Booked Appointment Confirmations — Frequently Asked Questions
• Calendar Guide — Using automated appointment reminders
• Patient Booking Site Guide